


Ghost of a Chance

by spastasmagoria (Spastasmagoria)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ghosts, M/M, Metaphysics, Post Reichenbach, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Slash, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spastasmagoria/pseuds/spastasmagoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock decides to solve the final problem: death. Namely: his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Departure

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, un-Britpicked. Standard disclaimers apply.

DEPARTURE

It had started as an experiment. The final experiment. The final problem. 

An experiment he’d concocted somewhere between stepping off the roof and hitting the pavement. 

There wasn’t so much a theory he was testing, as an ardent desire to see what would happen. And there was only one singular step in this experiment. It was really all he had time to think up, between the rooftop and the ground. One single thing he had to focus on. 

Whatever you do, DO NOT follow the light. 

It was silly. He understand the science of death. Chemicals were released into the brain, causing the sensation of colors, sounds and memories (the life flashing before ones eyes) that were associated with near-death experiences. Even the tunnel with the light at the end of it was a manifestation of the complex workings of the body as it shut down and prepared for nothingness. 

But he wondered... what would happen... if he just didn’t follow the light. Don’t go toward it. Hold on. Turn back. Turn left. Could one escape death? Could he cheat death past the point at which his body could not endure? 

He didn’t believe in an afterlife. But in those few seconds of free fall, he wanted nothing more than for it to be true. He wasn’t ready to die. He wanted to live. For the first time in his life, he had something to live for. 

And that was the bitter irony, wasn’t it? The thing that turned his life from the story of a tragic madman, the Don Quixote, to... something more Shakespearian. That was the very thing that was killing him. If he were a sociopath, he wouldn’t have jumped. If he were a sociopath, he’d have nothing to live for, and the tragedy would be in his living, not in his death. 

Nor would it have spurred him to do that one counter-intuitive thing. To not go toward the light. 

In that moment when he felt himself hit the ground (people did not die or lose consciousness from fright before they hit the bottom, that was just a silly rumor made up by the living to comfort themselves), he had his doubts. What if following the light were not optional? What if it were instinctive, like breathing, and could not be avoided? 

His body hit the pavement almost in slow-motion. He felt the impact of his head and body, then felt it ripple through him as momentum carried the rest of him still downward. He felt his ribs break from the force. It almost felt like being turned inside out--his chest felt like it passed all the way through him, past his spine and into the ground. It would be a messy cleanup, he knew. 

And then, for a moment... nothing. Was this it? That was all there was? It was like an anticlimactic theme park ride. Even death was boring. Disappointing. 

His experiment had failed. 

John was safe. 

At least he still had his priorities. Even in death. 

Nothing happened. 

Nothing continued to happen. 

What if he wasn’t dead? To be in a coma or locked in a vegetative state for the rest of his miserable experience, locked in terminable darkness. That would surely be hell. 

John was safe. 

It was still worth it. 

##

In that instant of making peace, everything rushed upon him as it was supposed to--psycadelic colors flashed before his eyes, his life replaying in rapid fast forward. The fuzzy haze of his mother standing over his cot, his father’s unnecessarily firm grip. Nannies, household staff, puncturing holes in his bed with a corkscrew at the tender age of four, and amusing himself for hours doing so. The odd look on his mother’s face--something between amusement and anger as she took the corkscrew from him and told him that his father would deal with him later. And oddly, his father never had. 

The summer when he was five and Mycroft thirteen, at the oceanside cottage that had burnt down when he was nine (he may or may not have had a hand). Mycroft explaining that ‘obviously,’ he was a ‘replacement child,’ because their older brother Sherrinford had died the summer before Sherlock was conceived. Sherlock had called Mycroft fat, and had gone back to playing with his chemistry kit. 

That first kiss. It had been awkward and unwanted. She’d been far more into it than he had, but he’d eventually settled into the idea. For science, you see. But even performing the mechanics correctly--the right amount of pressure, the appropriate hand-roaming and breast groping--he’d been largely unimpressed. 

The magnificent row with his father when he’d dropped out of university. He’d learned all he’d cared to there. Being told he was being cut off forever if he did not reenroll after the term break. Mycroft being dragged from his important job in the city to ‘talk sense into him.’ It hadn’t worked. 

The first overdose. 

The second overdose. Waking in the hospital handcuffed to a bed, two blurry, washed-out but concerned figures looming over him. Their details eventually resolved into Mycroft (expected) and Lestrade, the detective he’d annoyed and exasperated by showing up and doing ‘his thing’ at several crime scenes in the last month. All high as a kite, of course. And all of his deductions entirely correct, of course. It was unexpected. It was nice. He’d never had anyone care for him out of something that was not obligation before. He kind of liked it. 

The day Mrs. Hudson said she’d let him the flat. But there were conditions. He had to find a flatmate. He’d assured her that he could afford the rent. Yes, she’d told him, she knew he could afford it. But he was irresponsible. She wanted him to have a flatmate who would make sure that the money would actually make it into her hands each month. And his other bills too. And perhaps made sure he ate and slept once in a while... 

The night he’d realized... Well. It had been raining with intermittent spots of lightening and rolling, distant thunder. He’d watched the rain for a while, from the window next to the desk. The street lights illuminated the puddles and the heavy thick drops that pelted the tarmac as cars swished through it. John had offered him a drink. He’d accepted. They’d sat on the sofa, in the soothing darkness, listening to the rain. His fingers had brushed John’s, and John hadn’t pulled away. All of his madness. All of his annoyance. All of the madcap adventure and bodies and danger. John had never pulled away. That was the night it dawned on him. The night he realized. 

Last week, Tuesday morning. Standing over John’s shoulder, hand on John’s back for balance. Being a backseat blogger, as John called him. Pointing out spelling errors and poor word choices. John asked if he’d really rather not just write it up himself, if he was going to make one more editorial comment about ending sentences with prepositions. His heart had filled with an unexpected warmth when John offered to shoot him if he said one more word before the post was done. He would stay with John forever. Doing as they did. Until the end of the world, or until it swallowed them up whole. And that’s what it did, with men like them. Devoured them until there was nothing left. 

The rooftop--mere seconds ago. Goodbye, John. 

Falling. Crushing. Being turned to pulp. John begging to be let through. 

Wondering if the nothing would go on forever. 

Birth. 

Life. 

Calling Mycroft fat. 

Wondering if John would be adverse to retiring in Sussex. 

Children screaming. 

John’s voice, breaking over the phone. 

The fall.  
 The promise. 

The landing. 

The beginning.

The life. 

The heart stopping. 

The brain ceasing to function.  
 The death. 

The light. 

Just when he’d thought he’d be trapped in that endless circle of reliving his existence, from squirming, mewling infant to crushing end in perpetuity, it opened up. A white light. Starting as a pinpoint and growing wider, more intense. So bright. So untainted. Welcoming as much as swallowing him. 

It was warmth and comfort. Blessing and hope. The end of all things. The beginning of the next. 

Curiosity took hold. What was on the other side? Elysium field, paradise, rebirth, time, space, the universe... 

The final problem.

The promise. 

Don’t follow the light. 

Whatever you do, do not go toward it. 

He hadn’t formulated a plan for it it should be barreling toward him, like a commuter train in the dead of night. What should he do then? 

He did the only thing he could think of. 

He ran. 

He fled from it, but it felt like he was moving too slow. LIke he was in a dream, with laden limbs, trying to escape whatever great mystery lay beyond. It was as fast as he could go, and it wasn’t fast enough. The light was pulling him toward it. 

Would anyone even know if this experiment failed? 

Would anyone care? 

He would. 

Heaven was probably boring; all harps and clouds and things. Reincarnation was just as unappealing. The universe more still. 

It was only interesting if John were there to share it with, really. 

He broke hold of the light, escaping into darkness. Nothingness. Trapped there. 

Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe he was in a coma. Maybe he’d be trapped like this forever. 

Maybe this was hell. 

##

Awareness came back to him in pitches and fits. Stops, starts, and stops again. Whirling bits of light and consciousness, tangled and indecipherable like carnival lights as the world spun out of control on the tilt-a-whirl and twice as nauseating. 

He was only vaguely aware that he was incorporeal, and therefore had no anatomical structures capable of the physiological response of nausea. 

That did not keep it at bay. 

Snatches and fragments of a million moments. 

Mycroft drinks alone. 

Lestrade drinks alone. 

They drink together. The silence in unwieldy, even in the halls of the Diogenes Club. 

Mrs. Hudson bakes. Profusely. He wishes he could smell the pies. He’d liked those. And the danishes. He’d nicked many over the years. 

John. 

John in silence. 

John staring into the nothingness. 

John with that useless therapist. 

John sleeping in HIS bed at night. 

John making two cups of tea. 

One of them always grows cold on the desk. Next to Sherlock’s computer, which remains closed. 

A final blog post. 

##

Somehow, his conscious knits itself back together. Time comes to have meaning again. Space. Awareness. Chronology. Things became linear and less distorted. He could focus on who and where he wanted to be. 

With enough effort... he could be. 

He wasn’t corporeal. But he had substance in his mind’s eye. He was himself again. With limbs and hair, and a long, billowy coat. This was what happened if you did not follow the light. You became yourself again. 

Maybe. 

Was that his grave? 

It was polished black granite with gold etching. It was horrible. Obviously Mycroft’s choosing. He’d explicitly told John eight and a half months ago, last winter, when they’d nearly drown in the Thames, that he was to be tossed on the fire, consumed by flame and turned to ash and nothing more was to be thought about it. He and John had both agreed that graves were pointless memorials for the living. They had agreed that visiting them was pointless. Conversing with the dead even moreso. 

Why was John here now? Standing there, looking lost. Talking to a hideous polished headstone of disproportionate size and ostentatiousness to all those around them. 

One more miracle, John is asking for. Don’t be dead. Stop it. For him. 

Oh, he would if he could. SO much. But he’d only just learned how to THINK again. He had no idea how to make himself real. If he could. 

If he could, he’d recreate himself. Atom for atom. From the ground up. He’d step into his new body, taken from specks of dirt and air and cosmic dust. He’d step right in this moment. He’d tell John Watson that he’d stopped being dead. For John. That he’d cheated death. Side-stepped the bright light. For John. That he’d remade himself, from nothing. For John. 

He would do so many things. Everything he’d meant to say or do. If he could stop being dead. 

If anyone could figure out how... he could. 

He would. 

For John. 

 

To Be Concluded...


	2. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock manages a return from the dead. Of sorts.

Much as most of his life had been, it was a lonely existence, even though it was filled with people. 

There was Mycroft. Who kept to himself, which was not unusual. Save for now-frequent visits from Lestrade. They never spoke much. They’d sit there, in the Diogenes Club and drink in silence, something shared in the quiet, some commiserate misery that neither wanted to name or acknowledge. 

He watched them. More often than he wanted to. But it was something to do. That was on Tuesdays. 

Thursdays he watched Molly at the morgue. She did much as she had before. Only quieter, now. Autopsies. Causes of death. Weighing organs, cutting people up. Paperwork, paperwork, lab results... the occasional lunch with that idiot from radiology. He’d never liked the idiot from radiology. Molly was too clever for him. 

In the beginning, he’d once spent a whole week in the hospital, wandering the floors of the dying, wondering if he could witness that moment of death and gain some valuable insight into his current condition. He was methodical; he hounded the wards in search of someone who displayed all the signs of nearly being about to shuffle off the mortal coil (as it were), and then watch. 

He saw nothing significant of note. Or, perhaps, that was the significant portion of the exercise. Some would slip quietly away. Others were dramatic about it. But it was still the same--their bodies ceased to function in a manner conducive to the sustainment of life, and then they were gone. 

There were no etherial sheaths in glowing radiant light drifting from the body up toward some reaper with waiting open arms. There was nothing to distinguish the living from the dead, that he could see, other than vital signs. 

There were no others like him, roaming the halls of the hospital. 

He was truly alone. 

Was it possible? 

Was he the only one to ever escape the light? 

Certainly others had tried. It was statistically improbably that in the course of all of human existence, he was the only one who had ever escaped the warm, comforting clutches of The Great Beyond. Someone else must have done it. If only on accident. 

But he’d not encountered any of them yet. He’d not seen them leave their bodies to go some place else. He’d merely seen them cease being. 

Death was anti-climactic. 

##

The rest of the days of the week (with a few exceptions) he spent with John. It was much like life, except for the terrible loneliness of not being able to speak to John. To offer any comfort, or share a joke. Or earn a smile for being clever. Being dead was a bit useless in that regard. 

John stumbled through life. John’d not become depressed or despondent to the point where he feared that his friend would follow him into death. But he’d not exactly recovered, either. John went through the motions of life as he was supposed to; he got up, got dressed, read the paper, cheek twitching when he found an article that would appeal to his lost, dead friend. 

Every fifth time John made tea, he would forget, and make a second cup. It would get cold. John would sigh. He’d dump it in the sink, then would stare at the glossy-wet bottom of the cup, as if it held some sort of answers as to why his friend had done what he had done. 

And he wanted to explain it to John. So many times he’d tried. But no sound came out. If he’d developed substance in his mind’s eye, he’d not developed a voice. Death had muted him. 

Every day John went off to a job he was bored with. Apparently making the shift to Casualty was still not enough to engage all of his mind. Cuts and broken bones mixed with the occasional stabbing victim or home accident were just not the same as medicine in a war zone, or chasing one’s lunatic flatmate around London. And for that, he could not blame John. The life they had together... it had been something. Something significant. 

Something that he was only playing at now, an apparition going through the motions of everyday living, trailing behind his best friend, behind the person he cared about most in the world... because it was all he had left. Repetition of the patterns of being alive. 

He tried to reach out, to touch him. To indicate in some way that he was there, alive.

Not alive. But there. Aware. Conscious. Cognizant of the loneliness that had overtaken John. Living in his own lonely world just a breath away, but with some insurmountable barrier between them. 

He wanted things to be the way they were. It was all he desired. 

##

They held a... thing. On the first anniversary of his death. It wasn’t a memorial, exactly. Or a party. He did not know how to classify it. 

There was drinking and long periods of silence. Mrs. Hudson was keeping up with John. Molly had an engagement ring on her finger. This caused him to hate the idiot from radiology even more. 

John had this look on his face the entire time. Like he wanted to say something. Some thought, not fully realized, perched on the tip of his tongue, waiting to come diving off, and perhaps it would, if only they would ply him with more alcohol. 

Mycroft had put on weight. It gave him pleasure to know his brother was getting fat again. Replacement child, indeed. His brother was sitting in his very own chair, drink in hand. Lestrade sat on the arm of the chair, far too close to Mycroft for his liking. Lestrade would take the highball glass from Mycroft when it got too low, and would refresh it, without saying a word. They never spoke, those two. Not when he was around, and could see, at any rate. Perhaps they spoke on Wednesdays and Fridays, when he couldn’t be bothered with them because they did boring things like eat. 

But when Lestrade’s fingertips brushed at Mycroft’s, and Mycroft didn’t flinch away, he understood. It was unusual, and he’d hardly have expected it of his brother, but he understood. 

He was perfectly resigned to the idea by the time the storytelling started, and all focus had been taken off the silent pair, and their fingers intertwined. He didn’t mind, exactly. But he didn’t not mind, either. 

It went from solemn to gayety with stories of drugs busts long ago, that time he’d baked a human head on the rotisserie for some experiment or another, and a replay (often not verbatim, sadly--they were far more amusing that way) of his greatest insults. Eventually the mood swung back to a quiet sadness, and everyone slowly moved to depart. 

And at last, John was again alone. 

He cleared away the glasses. Marveled at the sheer volume of alcohol that had been consumed. Made himself that last cup of tea at the end of the night. The one where he always let it get just a bit too cold, then would gulp it down in one solid rush, then would go to bed. 

Tonight, however, John let it get more than cold as he stared off into nothingness. He hadn’t seen John do this in a while. 

“I would have done anything for you,” John whispered into the dimly lit room. “Anything.” 

“I know,” he whispered back. And he could hear it. John could not; the man made no indication that anything had changed. But it had happened. He had a voice. At least to himself. Which as all he had at this point--memories of a life a year gone, and himself. And now he could hear himself talk. 

He did not know if it were a blessing or a curse. 

##

It was another six months before he could manipulate matter. It was difficult, and he was not particularly good at it. He mostly got his practice in doing little things for John. pushing his keys back into his jacket pocket when they were about to fall out. Moving the pen he’d dropped behind the settee back out into the open. Turning down the volume on the television when John fell asleep in front of it. 

This was frustrating, of course. But better than the alternative. He could be here, with John, turning down the heat on the stove so the pasta would not boil over, or he could be on the other side of that light. Being bored. And he was never bored with John. 

Sometimes, when he was feeling bold, he would reach out and touch John’s hand. He never felt it; he could feel nothing in this immaterial state. John didn’t seem to feel it either. Still. He liked the look of his hand upon John’s, and sometimes left it there while his friend slept, just looking at it. Trying not to think of all the things he’d never said. The things he’d never fully realized. 

Death had a very funny way of clarifying things. 

##

Time passed. He had a vague understanding of how it moved, but it affected him less, in this state. John soldiered on. It’s what he did. He was very good at it. His friend was alright, but he wasn’t OK. He wished he could change that. 

Mycroft had taken the weight off again. 

He was wearing a ring that hadn’t been there before. Lestrade had a matching one. Neither mentioned it to outsiders. 

They barely mentioned it to themselves. 

It was fascinating, really. An entire relationship based on commiserate silence. 

But not what he was looking for. 

 

##  
Within another half a year, he’d gained enough control to interact with electronics directly. His first act had been to break into all of his brother’s files on the Moriarty case. His people were still working on destroying the web that had been left behind, and while they were making progress, it was still annoyingly slow. 

He made his first trip outside of London had been nearly a disaster. He kept losing his place, and finding himself once again in his flat, staring at John as he did some mundane chore, like clean the area below the range (who would have guessed the top of the range came up? Even in death, he learned things) or make yet another extra cup of tea. It had taken him four days to find his target. 

Mycroft’s people incompetent, granted. But being able to pass through two-foot thick walls without setting off security alarms had its advantages. So did being able to reach an insubstantial hand into a chest and stop the blood flow in a beating heart with only the tiniest of movements. Mycroft really ought to have employed ghosts as assassins ages ago. 

He felt no joy. He also felt no shame in the act. The man had been an arms dealer and whose weapons had killed the guilty and innocent alike. There’d also been no tangible or noticeable transition from life to death. Even with his ghostly hand inside the man’s chest. He’d felt...nothing. 

And so it went. He went down the list, avenging his own death. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. It was something to do, yes. But there was a sense of power. The visits did not always end in death. Being able to manipulate electronics gave him the ability to turn CCTV cameras at just the right time, or alert the proper authorities. There were plenty of minor players in this drama that were easily dealt with in this manner. A few others were... assisted with the occasional anonymous e-mail to his brother. 

He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, exactly, when he’d gotten that first reply. Sure, he’d caused various electronics devices to send alerts to law enforcement agencies. But he’d never been communicated with in return. 

Fear. Ecstasy. Joy. Terror. All of these. More. 

So many possibilities. 

He could text John. Tell him things he meant to say. 

And what would John say back? 

There was no reasonable way to explain it. There was no real way to get John to believe it. Believe in him. 

For the first time since his long solitude had begun, he felt the grips of despair. 

##

When John left each day, he would open his own laptop (still sitting in its place on the desk, dust-covered and unused--oddly, he could open the lid of the laptop, but the dust upon it was never disturbed by his acting upon it. OH, the experiments he would perform...), and research. 

Most of the internet’s holding on the paranormal, where he reluctantly classified himself, was rubbish. But he found the secret cache of useful information.It was disguised. You needed to know where to look. But he really had nothing but time, now. 

And those secret haunts of cyberspace had what he needed. The secret. The key.

Affecting the world around him became less tedious. From light switches to pots and pans, then furniture and doors, he progressed. Sometimes, it was like he could feel them. Like he was real. But he knew he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be, really. Not ever again. Anything approximating reality that he had would be hollow. But it would be his. 

He practiced night and day. He tore down the shower curtain, and made such a mess of the bathroom that John had gotten out his gun, certain that the house had been broken into. 

His friend had cleared each room with long-borne military precision. 

He laughed with scorn. “John, really. Is someone TRULY going to break into the flat, and head directly to the bathroom and turn it over? And leaves the television and the flat’s other contents undisturbed?” 

John went downstairs to check on Mrs. Hudson. He came back, but didn’t put the gun away. 

It was aggravating to watch. He had the means of reaching out, but no way of establishing himself as REAL. “Put that thing away,” he ordered his friend, following him into the kitchen. 

John put the gun down, on the counter next to the kettle as he turned it on. “John... I’m right here. Why can’t you see me?” He reached out and touched John’s shoulder. “I want you to see me.” 

John turned, as if he’d heard something, and looked around the kitchen. 

“Hello?” 

“There’s nobody here!” Sherlock shouted in frustration. 

John grabbed the gun again, leveling it at the air, safety still on. 

Sherlock ran his fake hands through his fake hair. How had he thought this tolerable until now? How had he lived--no--existed like this? For nearly three years? “Unless you count me. And I don’t count, do I?” 

John’s brow furrowed. “I’m finally losing it.” 

“You’re not losing it. I’m losing it,” Sherlock said in bitter honesty. 

The kettle boiled and clicked off, giving no indication, really, that it was done. He’d always hated that kettle, and the way it just shut itself off. Loathed it, with every fibre of his being. Every non-fibre of his non-being. Why was he here? 

He reached out and knocked the kettle over, spilling steaming water all over the worktop. It cascaded over the lip and down like a waterfall, nearly burning John in the process. 

His regret was instantaneous. 

Three years with no feedback from the rest of the world--with no touch or smell or taste, with no sense of hot or cold or time or space had obviously driven him mad. 

John had jumped away from the mess, but was staring at it in equal parts horror and surprised. “What the--”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry.” 

Maybe... maybe he was done here. Maybe it was time to move on. For so long, just being here was enough. But now... but now to be so close, and yet so far... To be within reach, and to just be knocking over tea kettles and frustrating himself... 

In the living room, he sat in his chair, hands steepled in front of him, thinking. It was a shame, really. That wanting something badly enough was not enough to make it materialize. Namely... himself. 

He wanted to be here--to be real. He wanted things to be as they were--desperately so. Cases and tea and experiments and... 

... And John. That was what he wanted, above all else. 

A hand to hold. A partner. 

As long as that partner was John. 

He remembered the quiet, unspoken way Lestrade’s fingers twisted in between his brother’s. That was what he wanted. More than anything. Fingers entwined, hearts pressing together, whispered secrets shared and burdens halved. That’s what he--

“Oh my god.” 

Sherlock looked up just as John dropped his teacup in the kitchen doorway. It hit the ground, momentum dragging the ceramic still downward, until it collapsed upon itself and shattered, much as Sherlock had done, three years before. Sherlock sympathized with the tea cup. 

“I’ve finally lost it,” John whispered. “Took damned near long enough.” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’re not crazy, John. Well, not in the way you’re thinking.” 

“And what way am I thinking?” 

If he’d had a heart to beat, it would have stopped in Sherlock’s chest. “You--heard me?” 

John wiped a hand over his mouth. “Yeah.” 

Neither of them dared to move, to bridge the distance between them, for fear of breaking the spell. 

“Do you... do you see me?” 

“Of course I see you.” 

Sherlock didn’t move even a fraction of an inch. “You....see me.” 

“Are you a ghost?” 

“OBVIOUSLY, John.” The scoffing remark was out of his mouth before he could stop it. 

John scrubbed his hands over his eyes, but Sherlock was still there when he opened them again. “You’re dead.” 

“Again with the stating the obvious.” 

“You’re... DEAD.” 

“I’m....sorry?” What exactly was the correct response to the question? He was dead. John was, to a degree, being obtuse. On the other hand... Sherlock would have been just as likely to believe it, were he in his flatmate’s shoes. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be. If that counts for anything.” 

John laughed bitterly. “Should have thought about that before you took a long walk off a building, now shouldn’t you?” 

Before Sherlock could explain that it had all been a trap, that he’d had no choice, the door to the flat opened. “John, dear, I heard the most frightful--” Mrs. Hudson stopped in the doorway next to John. “Sh-Sherlock.” 

“You can see him?” 

“You can see me?” 

They both stared at Mrs. Hudson, incredulous.

“Well, he’s sitting right there, isn’t he?” Good old practical Mrs. Hudson. Her eyes narrowed. “Shame on you, Sherlock Holmes. Faking your own death and making everyone cry their eyes out over you! Especially poor John, here.” 

Sherlock’s non-existent mouth opened and closed once while he tried to process it. “Yes. Faked my own death. That’s exactly what happened. “That was...wrong of me, and you’re right to be completely angry...” 

John had gone from surprise to hurt very quickly. “WHY, Sherlock? Just explain to me WHY.”

Sherlock sighed. “Because they were going to kill you. You, Mrs. Hudson,” the woman gasped. “And Lestrade. Unless I did what he wanted. And no, it didn’t matter that he was dead. Those were the terms of your... continued existence. But they’re all dead now. I made sure of it. So I suppose this is my homecoming.” Of sorts. 

Mrs. Hudson crossed the room to him. “Well, that’s all done and over-with now, thank goodness. Give us a hug.” 

Sherlock jumped from the chair, remembering to skirt around it like a bodied person would, and held up his hands to fend her off. “No. NO. Not right now.” 

“It’s just a hug.” 

He took another step back, trying to be conscious of the placement of the furniture so he didn’t come into contact with it. He couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t pass straight through. “Not now, Mrs. Hudson. Perhaps... later? Tomorrow, maybe?” He’d deal with this then. He wasn’t incredibly demonstrative in his affection for others, but Mrs. Hudson was one of the rare exceptions. He wouldn’t be able to put it off forever. He’d have to think of something before then. Some way to be sure that touching her wouldn’t give him away. “Can I... can I have a few minutes with John? I feel I owe him an explanation.” 

She sighed and shook her head. “Fine. I will bring you two something to eat. You’re far too thin.” She headed for the door, tears prickling at her eyes. “It’s... it’s good to see you.” And with that, she left. 

He and John stood in painful silence for several moments. “So. An explanation.” 

Sherlock looked away, guiltily. “It’s... not going to be a pleasant one. Or easy for you to accept.” 

“What? That my best friend tried to tell me he was a fake, then threw himself off a building? But oh, it’s alright, he wasn’t really dead? Go on, Sherlock. Make it make sense. Explain to me how you survived that fall--how it was all a ‘magic trick,’ that you had planned out from the beginning. Explain to me why I HAD TO WATCH THAT.” 

He wasn’t going to be able to do it. He wasn’t going to be able to keep the illusion going for John. Mrs. Hudson, yes. Lestrade and his brother, maybe. But John... 

“You’re asking how I survived the fall.” He walked cautiously around the chairs, to the fireplace where John was now standing. He looked in the mirror. It was his own reflection there. A face he hadn’t seen in three years--it was like looking at a stranger. “I... didn’t.” 

“What? You were dead? They revived you? Was Molly in on this? Is that why she performed the autopsy?” 

Sherlock held up a hand, staring at it. He pressed it to John’s chest. “No. I mean... I didn’t survive it.” He touched John’s chest, using all of his concentration to pressed his flattened palm to the fabric of John’s jumper. It was the oddest... he could feel it. The texture of the yarn, the softness of it. The heat coming from John’s skin. “I... I can feel it. I can feel it?” He hadn’t felt anything in three years--not the heat. Not the cold. Nothing his incorporeal hands pushed against or through. 

John’s hand covered Sherlock’s. “Of COURSE you can feel it. Why wouldn’t you be able to? What’s wrong?” 

“I’ve... I’ve not felt anything in three years.” 

“What happened?” 

Sherlock laughed bitterly as he gently pushed against John’s chest, his hand not passing through it as it ought. “I don’t know, John. Not any more.”

“Just... explain what happened.” 

He looked at his hand. Touched his own hand, like it were a foreign object. “Do I have a pulse?” It was a matter of curiosity now, more than conviction. Maybe the last three years HAD been a dream? An impossible, painful dream?

John grabbed Sherlock’s wrist and felt for one. “You’re a bit cold to the touch.” After a bit of feeling around, he went for the vein in his neck. Then the other side. “I can’t find it. What’s going on?” He picked up Sherlock’s other wrist and began feeling for it as well. 

“John... I jumped. I died. As far as I knew... I died. And then, I... didn’t go toward the light.” He gently pulled his hand from John’s grasp. “Then the next coherent thing I remember was being at my own grave. And you were there. Telling me not to bed dead.” 

John pulled back Sherlock’s eyelids. “Right.” 

“I’m quite serious.” 

“And I believe that you truly believe that.” 

“Can you find my pulse?” 

“Well, obviously you have one, if you’re standing upright. Even if I can’t feel it. And your pupils are reacting to light. So obviously you’re ALIVE. Hold on.” He went over to the desk to grab his stethoscope. “You’re hardly a ghost, Sherlock. So I don’t know what you’re getting at, but this will...” He slid the diaphragm around Sherlock’s chest, then flipped it over and did the same with the bell. “You have to have a pulse,” he said numbly. 

“Do I?” 

“You’re not a ghost,” John said in numb denial.

Sherlock stared at his reflection in the mirror. Until an hour ago, that’s exactly what I thought I was. Now? I don’t even know.” Was this a dream now? Were the last three years a painful nightmare? 

Was he being given a second chance? 

Only one way to find out, really. He cupped John’s face in his hands. “I need to see..” if he could feel it. To see how real it was to him. He felt the bristle against his hands. Could feel John’s warmth. How may times had he rested his hand on John, praying for something like this? 

Boldness borne of curiosity and desperation, he leaned in and kissed those warm, firm lips. They tasted like biscuits and tea and felt like... heaven. “I felt that.” 

“So did I,” John said, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. He coughed, then backed up. 

Sherlock slid his hands down John’s neck, across his shoulders, down his arms, and grabbed his friend’s hands. “You feel so real.” 

“I am real, Sherlock.” 

“Maybe I am too?” 

John squeezed Sherlock’s hands, then leaned forward, kissing him on the lips again with a blushing smile. “Yeah. You’re real too. Now what’re you going on about?” 

He twisted his fingers into John’s. He’d been given a second chance. Perhaps, he should simply stop asking questions, and accept what he’d been given--a gift. A boon. A second chance he likely didn’t deserve. “I don’t know. Nothing. Maybe. Everything. But...This. I want this. Exactly what it is right now. Forever.”

John smiled faintly. “Forever’s a long time.” 

“I think I know how we can manage it.” 

THE END


End file.
